Secrets in the Dark
by greenbowls
Summary: An AU story of Derek and Ivy throughout Season One. What if his hallucinations had been more than artistic?


The memories are a blur. She thinks later that is why she's so sure she didn't do it for the part. She can't say she wouldn't have. She might not have but then again, she might have if it had been on the table. But looking back at that moment, remembering his hands on her face, all she can see is that look in his eyes. She doesn't remember thinking, deliberating, she remembers pulling him close again after that first kiss and being barely able to breathe.

They don't have a schedule. A routine perhaps, but nothing set. They text sometimes during the day but she can't say they talk. At night, he's quickly become a constant. She likes that she doesn't have to wait for his call. She knows it will come until the day it doesn't. Three days feels like it's multiplying by the hour. She doesn't want to call. That's not their routine. That's not her. Is it Derek? She doesn't want to call. When he shows up like he was never gone, she doesn't know what to say. He's at her work, with her friends. That's not their routine either. Then they all leave, and it's just her and Derek again, moving from quick teasing to sex and the tension smoothes out again.

She finds out later the story about the gas pipes is true. She asks the doorman. Kind of. Really she asks if the work is done in the whole building or just Derek's place and he spilled all. She thinks that's when he really started to like her- when she talked to him. She doubts Derek ever has. That's probably why he was so willing to spill the rest of the story too. The work wasn't finished until recently and the apartment _was_ a mess but since Derek wouldn't let anyone in for three days it slowed down the project for the whole building.

Karen is a surprise. The jolt of jealousy is frustrating on two levels. Even as it reinforces the insecurity that is a constant battle and she feels the claws coming out even as she knows better, the nerves related to Derek confuse her. He's in her bed. He cast _her_. So why does she feel like if she looks away for a moment, everything will have shifted by the time she looks back?

The first time she sees him popping pills they are two weeks into rehearsal and she's a week into sharing his bed. She's seen him on the phone, gesticulating like an angry conductor a dozen times. She's seen him sit, elbow on his knee, hand rubbing his head at least half a dozen. She's seen him stare at a script, whiskey by his side at least as many. This is the first time she sees him move from one to the next with this ending- the whiskey washing down a little white pill from a bottle hidden in the nightstand. She goes downstairs hoping the phone call will be done, the scene appropriately adjusted, when she gets back.

She hasn't been staying long when she wakes up to see him sleeping fitfully on the couch, pills on the end table. She isn't sure why it's so shocking. She realizes later it's the first time she's seen him in pain. Instinct has her calling out to him quietly rather than shaking him awake.

Derek is never calm in bed. During sex, he's frequently gentle, sometimes slow, but never still. Never calm. That continues when he sleeps. He rolls, tosses, mutters. She realizes quickly this night is an extreme when she wakes to the noises he's making, his hand hitting her shoulder for the third time. She wakes him and he pushes her away. Though he goes back to sleep quickly and she gratefully follows a short while later, she knows even as she drifts off she'll wake to find him on the couch. Later, she can feel herself taking his wrath all day but she doesn't understand why. What's a headache?

Later, seeing him walk out in her head like an old silver screen film on repeat, she will wonder if he can't face her vulnerability because she has an eye into his now. Was it the night before? Was it the tears? Was it the subject matter? Or was it the connection and her interpretation?

That night, he makes sure she isn't angry. They are finally peaceful again but she doesn't know why. She'll admit only to herself that just as much as she doesn't know what got them to this place, she doesn't know what made him let her inside the front door either. For the moment, all she knows to do is hold on and hope a bit of whiskey is the end of it for the night.

She doesn't know when it entered her consciousness, when their routine became more than phone calls to sex to rehearsal. He stayed up all night working the night before- expect an explosion and to wake up alone. He didn't eat, downed masses of coffee- watch out. He won't call that night.

She wonders sometimes why she didn't call him. Because she wanted him to call her? Because she wasn't sure he would come and didn't want to find out if he wouldn't? She knows her anger is unreasonable even as she lies in wait, the trap set. She wanted him to call. She wanted him to want to call. Tom's presence makes the superiority burn.

He is surprisingly calm during the workshop. Part of her had worried one of his moods would come. The other part was too busy to know, though she can't help the twinge of relief when she sees him eating one of his energy bars. His support in the face of her mother softens the walls she was working so hard to put up. She's gentle when she tells him. They don't break up exactly. She needs space. Later she'll acknowledge it wasn't even really a breakup at all. A break perhaps but he came back to her too easily, it turned into a step forward together too quickly for it to have been a breakup.

She wonders why she keeps the pills from him. She wonders if she is. She doubts it. Common knowledge between them, both secrets, makes equal ground?

He never really mentions Heaven on Earth. He shows up the next day, gives Tom her angel costume then shuts the door in his face. She's hiding in the bathroom. When she comes out, he's messing with a script on the couch. She waits for it, but the only thing he says is that there should be minimum requirements for idiots to be allowed to write and pass things out like they're worth a damn to people with brains. She settles next to him, his arm wraps around her. His lips press to the side of her head once, and she knows. She fixes them sandwiches, he pours her wine and puts on a Marilyn movie.

The first time it really occurred to her that his moods were more than moods, that his pills were more than medication for an achy head was the second time they spent all day together. Most weekends they were busy but for only the second time when they got in on Saturday night, she stayed until rehearsal Monday morning. The first hint came in the night Saturday night. He tossed and turned, something she'd learned was a precursor. The next morning the pills were by his side. By night, he would barely look at her. She was tempted to leave, thought maybe he wanted her to, but she couldn't go. That night she fixed him soup and he slept on the couch.

For a few days it was all she could think about. It ran through her head- Derek mixed with work mixed with work helping him mixed with helping him with work. At the end of the day, she settled on the work. It was what bound them in many ways. And when the darker moments came, it was steady ground.

She doesn't know why she does it. She knows he doesn't want to see her. She knows why. She stops by anyway because she also knows he'll let her in. She doesn't know what to do when she gets there so she settles on fixing the soup she knows he'll eat at least a little of out of obligation. She knows he hasn't eaten anything but pills all day. His look is a mix of skepticism and shock when she suggests the hot bath. She knows his instinct is to refuse but when she mentions the nudity involved, her hands sliding up his chest he kisses her instead. A bit of insistence and he's agreed. When he finally relaxes against her, his head tipped back against the rim of the tub, eyes closed, she hopes it means it's helping. When she realizes he's practically asleep, his hand in hers, she knows.

They never talk about it. She knows when something happens. She wonders sometimes what it is when she sees him drawn to Karen even as he clings to her. What is in his head? She's jealous of her. At first it was about the role but now she knows it's as much because she doesn't understand. Does he think she's better? Does he want her more? Is it Karen as Marilyn or Karen? She has no idea and that hurts and shames.

The spells get closer together. Sometimes she wonders what she even considers one of his spells anymore. Is it just when he can't sleep and drugs himself into oblivion? Is it when his moods shift like sand and she can see the pain behind eyes red with tension, his hair standing up on end from being pulled at again and again? Are they those weird moments when he seems drawn to Karen like a magnet even as he touches her like a life raft?

Their habits begin to shift. She's been at his apartment thirteen days when she runs out of socks. She doesn't wear them frequently, normally in tights and dance shoes, but when she realizes, it hits her like a force. It's quickly dismissed but when she notices he doesn't eat breakfast so picks him up an extra bottle of water and banana at lunch, feels the early rumblings of the mood shifts so sticks closer like a silent steadying hand, sees the pills on the coffee table so moves his pillow to the couch, making sure a throw is close by in case he gets cold, the force hits again. This time it's less easily dismissed. Acknowledgement would be more impossible than dismissal.

They leave separately for Boston. As she mentally goes down her list, she checks things off for him as she packs her own bag- rehearsal clothes, extra dance shoes, his favorite rehearsal pants she washed for him after he forgot them on her floor. She has toothpaste, he has a full tube in his cabinet.

She doesn't see him until hours into Boston. When he says ILY like he's said it a million times before, her first feeling is joy. The shocked happiness is quickly shoved aside to be shared by the weight. What does this mean? Does he really love her? And if he does, does that mean she's in so deep she can't get out? Deep in something good, or deep in the secret?

The confusion was finally fading. Then Rebecca. It all hits again until she can't breathe. What's in his head? Why does he want Rebecca? Why does he want Karen? Why anything but her? What is she to him? It mixes in her head until she doesn't know which way to look. She wants to blame him, to hate him, but every time she tries, she feels his lips on her hair, sees him with her wine in his hand, his face lit up when a scene is finally perfect, sees his face drawn in pain as he tosses on the couch and the edge is gone.

Dev feels like revenge. Like punishment. Like escape. Like the worst decision possible.

The next day she finally feels as confused and bad about herself as she feels about her relationship with Derek. She wonders if one can feel so badly that they don't feel anything at all. Is there a limit? A full capacity point? It makes sense to her as the knowledge weighs even as the emotion dulls until there's nothing but the pressure of being appalled at herself.

She sees him leave the stage. He seems so in control, so purposeful. Even at the same time she can't shake the feeling there's something. Is it the tense way he's walking, favoring his left side just slightly? Is it the moodiness? Is it the knowledge he hasn't eaten yet today? When Eileen calls her, tells her Derek needs her backstage, she knows even as she goes. She wants to turn and run even as she can't think until she sees him. She feels her feet drag even as they race to the dressing rooms. He's standing bent over the makeup counter when she gets there. When he turns, his eyes are panicked and pain filled. She shuts the door behind her in Eileen's fascinated, worried face and walks to him.

When he says it aloud the first time, it's like the flood gates open. She doesn't know what to feel. Relief it's out? Terror at the truth? Panic at how much more there is than she even knew? She does the only thing she knows to do. She hugs him close and whispers she'll handle it, they'll handle it. Ivy may not know what to do, but she's never been the type to stand idly by.

She calls in a favor. Doctors know doctors. The best doctors know the best doctors. Ivy grew up in those elite circles. Doctors in the morning, scans in the afternoon, previews at night. Secrets kept, even as she suspects everyone knows as she hovers, never leaving his side. Stories run fast in theaters and there's no way Derek's dressing room spell didn't become one. The phone call comes at breakfast the next day. Come in please. They both know before they get there. Good things you don't have to be told in person. Then again, good things don't require pills and months of pain and confusion and terror as you lose control more and more, seeing muses in the light.

When the doctor says the word, _tumor_, she feels both as out of control as she's ever felt and like she's finally on solid ground again. Even as the mounting terror gains a name she's flooded with relief at the knowledge it brings. The questions start. Surgery? Treatment? Medication? And the one no one wants to voice- why is it there? Is it…?

The trip back to the theater is long, silent. He never lets go of her hand even as he looks at anything but her. The first thing he says is that adjustments need to be made to the closing number. She simply nods, too scared to oppose, too tired to agree. When Eileen sticks to all business, she's annoyed. When she corners her later she has no idea what to say. Is a secret still a secret once it's known? Or does it just become that thing no one talks about outside of whispers?

When they tell him they'll have to shave his hair for the surgery he responds with his normal bluster. It's the way his eyes flick away from hers, down to the ground, to the far wall, to the door, that tiny bit of shyness and concern that makes her heart ache. She kisses him quickly and tells him it's not the haircut she had in mind but it will do. Shaggy is for teenagers. He just rolls his eyes but looks straight at her as he smiles.

She decides the waiting room is hell. Really, truly. Tom comes and goes, Eileen waits by her side. She wants to cling, she wants to run. She wants coffee and chocolate and to throw up at even the smell of food. When the doctor says the words "it went well" she finally feels her heart break. It feels like drowning- the tension and fear and happiness and relief. She follows numbly when they tell her family can see him.

Later, hours into her vigil, the label sticks in her head- family can see him. Even as quickly as she pushes the foreign thought away, it creeps back in another context. It's there when she goes over the checklist of things brought to the hospital, unpacking his bag when he's moved to a room. It's there days later when she's half yelling, half negotiating, trying to get him to eat something, anything. It's there when she's going over care instructions with the nurses. It's there when she's picking up his medication. It's there when she's arranging for a car to drive them home. It's there when she's lying down in their bed, her things mixed with his on the end table, her clothes beside his in the closet. It's there when she returns to work and calls to check on him so often he refuses to respond in any way but cutting the call off short. It's pushed aside again and again, brutally, fearfully, in annoyance and impatience, until he joins her for breakfast. She knows he's bored when he reads the paper. He's quietly proud when his hands don't shake pouring her orange juice. And when she kisses him goodbye, she says I love you and can't help but smile at the pleasure in his eyes.


End file.
